"Then I noticed in the same cabinet a little old worn toby jug--a shepherd plaid--about the oldest and rarest there is, you know; and I knew I had three or four unnumbered notes on toby jugs--and, sure enough! three of them fitted this toby; and I put _them_ together, with the jug on top, on the library table. Of course I was wild then to find some more. In the other cabinets that weren't unlocked, I could see, through the glass doors, a lot more things, and some of them, I was sure, fitted some of my unnumbered notes; but of course they didn't do me any good, as I couldn't get at them. One perfectly beautiful Oriental lacquered cabinet with diamond-paned doors was full of tablets, big and little, and I was crazy to get at those-- I had a lot of notes about tablets. I did find in my cabinet, though, a little package of Chinese bank-notes, and I was sure I had something on those. And I had. I knew about them, anyway. I had seen some in London. These dated 'way back to the Tang dynasty--sixth century, you know--and were just as smooth! They're made of a kind of paper that crumples up like silk, but doesn't show creases. They had little rings printed on them of different sizes for different values, so that even the ignorant people couldn't be deceived, and--" "Yes, yes, dear, but go on--go on," interrupted the eager-eyed mother, with a smile. "I want to know what happened _here_--not back in the sixth century!" "Yes, yes, I know," breathed Betty; "but they were _so_ interesting--those things were! Well, of course I put the bank-notes with their clippings on the table; then I began on another drawer. It got to be one o'clock very soon, and Mr. Denby came home to luncheon. I wish you could have seen his face when he entered the library and saw what I had done. His whole countenance lighted up. Why, he looked actually handsome!--and he's forty, if he's a day! And there wasn't a shred of tiredness in his voice. "Then when he found the bank-notes and the Buddha and the toby jug with the unnumbered clippings belonging to them, he got almost as excited as I was. And when he saw how interested I was, he unlocked the other cabinets--and how we did talk, both at once! Anyhow, whenever I stopped to get my breath he was always talking; and I never could wait for him to finish, there was so much I wanted to ask. "Poor old Benton! I don't know how many times he announced luncheon before it dawned over us that he was there at all; and he looked positively apoplectic when we did turn and see him. I don't dare to think how long we kept luncheon waiting. But everything had that flat, kept-hot-too-long taste, and Benton and Sarah served it with the air of injured saints. Mrs. Gowing showed meek disapproval, and didn't make even one remark to a course--but perhaps, after all, that was because she didn't have a chance. You see, Mr. Denby and I talked all the time ourselves." "But I thought he--he never talked."